To the editor:
With our current voting system only one of the contenders for mayor will win, and that will be a loss to the community; there are other options is there not?
One should re-evaluate how we elect our city council. Currently, we divide council with three types of positions, mayor, at-large and ward councillors, although each gets an equal vote on council, one vote.
The school boards offer a different process, where the top six or eight candidates forms the new council. Then after the election a chair is elected among themselves.
This makes more sense since they are will get one vote on council. A weighted vote would make more sense in the future.
Let us look at the unique position of ward councillors.
They are elected by only 1/7th of the city, yet the vote on city wide matters; in fact one ward councillor was the chair for the waterfront development that was not his ward.
Councillors don't have to live in their ward or even in the city, as long as they own property in the perspective area.
Ironically, the majority of the city cannot vote for ward councillors and they have more seats than the at large and mayor positions; this is truly undemocratic.
Don't misunderstand this comment, there are many ward councillors that would also be elected in the at-large position, that is not the issue.
If we want the best representatives for the city, those elected to represent the city, that includes all wards, and they should be elected by the greatest number of voters.
The current system is can be made better.
Perhaps if we acknowledge how the system works a better voting system would be to elect all individuals in one category and have the top person have the option of being the mayor as some cities do much like the school boards do.
Some ideas for consideration in make a good system better.
